i. While both systems divide the octave into twelve parts, their nomenclature is different. Moreover, Carnatic music uses 16 notes in these 12 values.
ii. Carnatic music is melodic – it stresses more on successive notes with ornamentation, whereas Western music focuses on harmony – simultaneous notes and combinations thereof.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Differences Between Carnatic and Western Music
John Ortiz, PhD, a “psycho-musicologist” based in Pennsylvania, is a trained musician and psychologist as well as the author of The Too of Music (1997). He uses a combination of techniques to speed up patients’ healing processes.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Psycho-Musicology in Music Therapy
The wife of a man with severe dementia said, “When I was encouraged by a music therapist to sing to my husband, who had been lost in the fog of Alzheimer’s disease for so many years, he looked at me and seemed to recognise me. On the last day of his life, he opened his eyes and looked into mine when I sang his favourite hymn. I’ll always treasure that last moment we shared together.”
If you’d like to experiment with sound therapy on your own, Ortiz, Campbell and Goldman offer some suggestions.
· Raise your sound awareness by noticing the sounds around you in everyday life. This grounds you in the here and now and enhances your communication skills by improving your listening skills.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Important Suggestions for Music Therapy
Music therapy is for anyone. Although it can be used therapeutically for people who have physical, emotional, social, or cognitive deficits, even those who are healthy can use music to relax, reduce stress, improve the mood, or to accompany exercise. There are no potentially harmful or toxic effects.
Music can take an individual faster into meditative states.
Music allows us to transcend the everyday states of consciousness and travel to places that we either have a memory of or create in our imagination. This process of transcending the mundane evokes psycho physiologic responses when people shift to altered states of consciousness.
Continue reading Music Therapy: How Did Music Evolve as Therapy?
A music therapy programme raised melatonin levels and improved behaviour and sleeping problems in 20 male Alzheimer’s patients. Jule Klotter, writing about this path-breaking experiment, says that the Alzheimer’s patients underwent music therapy for 30-40 minutes, five days a week for one month. Blood samples were taken before the first session, at the end of the four weeks of therapy, and six weeks after the study’s conclusion.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Treating Alzheimer’s Disease With Music Therapy
We, human beings, are the privileged species who have been endowed with the power of intelligent speech, and the words which we utter can work wonders in our life. Some words can lull us to sleep, other words can soothe us and some other words can make us laugh and sing. But, some words can also injure our feelings and make us cry and weep.
Continue reading Pranic Healing: The Sound of Music in Pranic Healing
Seed Word = R
Inhale Mantra = RANM
Exhale Mantra = MIRROR
Principle = FIRE
This is a Life Preservation Chakra. The Child is yoked to the mother through the navel for food sustenance. It is located around the Navel region in the spine.
Seed word = V
Inhale Mantra = VANM
Exhale Mantra = MOOVIV
Associated Words = S, SH
Principle = WATER
It strengthens the Ovaries, the lower intestines, and the sacral region of the spine.